Carina vs The Trainwreck
by daydreamer2578
Summary: Chuck vs The Pink Slip interlude and sequel to Sarah vs The Dreamless Sleep. Sometimes you need a friend to help you get to sleep, and sometimes you need one to help you get back up again, even to help you fly.
1. Chapter 1

_Back in 2009, when the casting rumors for season three started to leak and we found out Carina would be making a return to the show, I promised_ **mxpw** _and_ **Wepdiggy** _a sequel to_ Sarah vs The Dreamless Sleep _based on_ Chuck vs The Three Words. _B_ _ut d_ _ue to a lot of factors_ _—shock over the direction the show had taken, the lack of a long enough interlude in the episode for a fully fleshed-out story, and a hectic personal life on my own part_ _—_ _that story never saw the light of day. It occurred to me recently though that a Sarina story would be better set during_ Chuck vs The Pink Slip _anyway_ _, and, seven years later, this fic was born. See? Who says I don't keep my promises? Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah boys, I hope you enjoy it._

 _This is a sequel, so while it's probably not necessary to read_ Sarah vs The Dreamless Sleep _first, it couldn't hurt. And all that I mentioned in my author's note there still applies: Sarah and Carina have a long and sordid history based on my Fallout AU, and this is first and foremost a friendship and hurt/comfort piece. But, yes, it is still technically slash, so don't read on if you disapprove of intimacy between two people of the same gender or a Chuck story without Chuck. And as you can probably guess by the time frame, this story is anything but fluffy. I won't lie. This one brings the pain, folks._

 _I sent this out to one of my favorite authors and all-around great guy_ **Course Jester** _for a beta, and he seriously did a fantastic job, but was only able to get through the first third or so before the combination of holiday madness and a Transdimensional Killer Cold took over the Jester household, and I wanted to get this out in time for Christmas. So if the first third is a much easier read than the latter two, you have him to thank for it. Thanks again for taking the time to read this over, CJ. Your feedback is always valued and appreciated._

 _Like_ Dreamless Sleep _, I didn't write this as a songfic, but a few songs came up while working on it that I thought fit well, so I included them in the chapter headings. If you make a playlist and read very quickly in some sections and very slowly in others, they almost fit. And as I'm always looking for new music, I'm happy to take suggestions on alternative playlists._

 _And I do too own Chuck—the complete series on iTunes. Wait... What? You mean that doesn't count for anything and the time and effort we put into this won't earn us enough for CJ and me to take a luxury vacation to Lisbon? Well… shucks. It looks like a beautiful city. Oh well, I wrote it and my passport is expired anyway, so I may as well share it._

 _The story opens two days after a certain incident at a train station in Prague..._

* * *

 **Lisbon, Portugal  
** **21 May, 2009**

 **Song Cues:**

 **Chandelier - Sia  
** **Something Wild - Lindsey Stirling Feat. Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness  
** **Pieces - Rob Thomas**

* * *

"Jesus, Walker. What the hell happened to you?"

Passed out before her, in the honeymoon suite of a posh hotel, was the most breathtaking mess Carina Miller had ever seen. Her old friend and partner Sarah Walker was sprawled face-down on the ornate bed, duvet crumpled beside her, head buried in the pillows, and a tangled mass of blonde curls spread out around her. She was wearing a slinky black mini dress that barely covered a thing, one Louboutin dangling from one foot, its mate on the floor. Stamps and neon-colored bracelets from several night clubs were mixed in with the chunky costume jewelry decorating her hands and wrists.

 _Damn,_ Carina thought. _Looks like I missed all the fun again._

Carina took a long look around the uncharacteristically messy room wondering what in the hell had happened the night before. She had knocked on the door for a good thirty seconds before losing patience and picking the lock, walked right up to the bed and called her name, and the CIA's finest still slept. The heavy snoring indicated that Sarah wouldn't be waking up anytime soon either.

 _She's down for the count. Waaaaay down._

Carina lost her patience again and chucked her lockpick at Sarah's head. It hit with a thud and bounced off, clattering onto the hardwood floor. Sarah groaned and turned her head, squinting up from the mascara-smeared pillow she had been drooling into. "Whaa you doin' 'ere?" she slurred.

 _Wow_ , Carina thought again. _Get a load of_ _that face._

Carina dropped her bag, sat down on the edge of the expansive bed, and rolled the limp blonde over onto her back. "I don't know. You messaged me. Promised me a good time? Remember?" She held up her phone so Sarah could read the text message.

"Wazzn' me," Sarah hiccuped, not looking at the phone. "Mmm not 'avin… good time."

"I can see that." Carina stood up and threw open the curtains covering the room's French doors.

Sarah winced in the sudden sunlight, running her hands over her eyes and further smearing her day-old makeup. The black streaks running down her cheeks and towards her ears spoke of tears at some point in the night. "Han' me 'at, will ya'?" She pointed to a mostly empty bottle of whiskey sitting next to a mostly full ashtray on the night stand.

Carina quirked an eyebrow. "I'm never one to turn down a free drink, but it looks like you've had enough." She batted Sarah's reaching hand away and helped herself to the bottle, taking a swig of liquid fortitude. _Haven't seen her this bad in a long time. Cigarettes and everything._ They had both smoked off and on as teens, but since joining the CIA, Little Miss Perfect Spy had fastidiously given up any vices that might affect her performance beyond the occasional drink. Or twenty, apparently _._

"Please?" Sarah tried for puppy-dog eyes, but only succeeded in watery red bleariness as she struggled to raise herself up on her elbows. "Dog… hair… head… hurts."

"Oh, for crying out loud." Carina slammed the bottle back down on the night stand, making Sarah grimace again. She had suspected from the moment she received the unencrypted typo-ridden message that Sarah hadn't just called her up for a good time, but whatever was going on, she hadn't dropped everything to jump on a red-eye and fly to Portugal only to watch her drown herself in whiskey and self-pity. "Get up."

"Nuh-huh." Sarah fell heavily back into the pillows and pulled the duvet over her head. "Go 'way. I'm goin' back t'sleep." She grasped blindly for Carina's arm, attempting to pull her down next to her.

Carina heaved a dramatic sigh, ripped the covers off of the bed and maneuvered Sarah's protesting arm over her shoulders. The wasted agent put up a token resistance, reaching under a pillow for what was probably a knife, but in her condition she was easy enough to manhandle out of the bed and across the room to the bathroom door—which turned out to be held closed by a pair of knotted thigh-highs looped around the knob and tied to the leg of a heavy antique dresser.

"What the hell, Walker? Are you on a mission?" She certainly didn't _look_ like she was on a mission. Acting like this on missions was a good way to get dead quick.

"Wouldn't stop talking," she mumbled. "Why they always gotta talk s'much?"

Just then, a scrambling sound came from the bathroom and someone started pounding on the door.

"Ei! Ei! Deixe-me sair! Deixe-me sair!" a tremulous tenor voice called frantically.

Carina, giving Sarah a quizzical look, pulled a knife from her bra and sliced through the stockings, throwing open the door. On the other side a tall, lanky man with olive skin and curly black hair jumped backwards, a panicked expression on his face. His shirt and the fly of his jeans were gaping open, both conspicuously missing their buttons. As soon as he cleared the swinging door, he shouldered his way past the two women, startled again as he noticed Carina's knife, and made a beeline for the exit. "Puta loca!" he yelled as he strode out into the hallway.

"Don't you esqueço you what I to you told sobre chamando a polícia!" Sarah called after him in something that was equal parts Portuguese, English, and ethanol.

"You can call me, though!" Carina chimed in, smirking at Sarah. "I bet I could figure out a couple ways to make him shut up."

Sarah pushed away from Carina, aiming for the bed but stumbling into the dresser. As she threw out her arms to catch herself, she knocked over a metal canister roughly the size of a coffee can. "Bryce!" she cried and dove after it as it rolled over the edge. Carina managed to hook her around the waist before she could tumble headlong to the floor.

"His name was Bryce?" she asked, lunging backwards to haul the dangling agent back upright. Walker had packed on a few more pounds of muscle since the last time they'd been together, and Carina grunted at the effort. "He didn't look like a Bryce."

 _Looked a lot like a Chuckles though. Right down to the shoes._

Carina filed the observation away, spinning Sarah awkwardly around so that they were face-to-face and she was supporting her under her arms, not unlike one would a small child.

"No... that's Bryce," Sarah pointed vaguely and dropped her head onto Carina's shoulder.

"Huh?" she asked, craning her head back to take a look. The canister, she finally noticed, was, in fact, an urn—fancy inscription and everything.

"Chuck and I were s'possed to scatter him here," Sarah hiccupped.

The inscription put Bryce's date of death as April 27, 2009—just over three weeks ago. Hadn't Larkin died back in '07? Carina stored the question in the back of her mind. Now didn't seem like a good time to ask. Knowing him, he had probably faked his own death just to see who would show up at his funeral. She had thought about doing that herself a time or two.

"Where is Chucky?" Carina asked instead. She glanced around again and didn't see evidence of anyone but Walker in the room—and a smattering of buttons.

"Prague. Training." Sarah spit out the last word like it was poison. She flopped back to lean on the door frame, pulling Carina with her. Carina used the momentum to spin them into the bathroom. She walked Sarah backwards step-by-step across the tiled floor and hooked her knees on the edge of the bathtub, lowering her down until her ass was in the jacuzzi and her feet in the air.

Normally a sight like that would get her motor revved up nicely, but now Carina just knuckled her back as she straightened up and kicked off her stilettos. "You ever think we might just be getting too old for this shit, Walker?"

"Every damn day."

"Yeah, I can tell." Carina grabbed the showerhead, aimed it at Sarah's smeared face, and turned on the cold water.

Sarah gasped and sputtered and choked and flailed until she managed to get a hold of the side of the tub and pull herself to the faucet to turn it off. She yanked the hose out of Carina's hands and lay gasping on her back with her head by the drain and one knee draped over the edge of the tub, water running off of her foot and onto the mat. Her dress had ridden up above her waist, and Carina's eyes followed it until...

 _Damn. That's a surprise._

"Walker? You had a guy locked in your bathroom and your underwear's still on?"

"Told you… wouldn't… stop… talking…"

Carina smirked down at her. "Out of curiosity, when was the last time your underwear _did_ come off in the presence of another person?" It had been well over a year since the last time she had seen Sarah in Los Angeles. She hoped to God that she hadn't been the last person to get her out of her panties too.

"I don't wanna talk about it." Sarah groaned, closed her eyes, and let her head drop to the side, mascara-tinged water dripping off the end of her nose.

"If you say so." Carina wasn't buying it for a second, but still, she reached down, grabbed Sarah's forearm and pulled her up, spinning her around so that she was now sitting at the back of the tub with her other leg dangling over the side. "Just lean forward if you need to hurl."

"Nope." Sarah clamped her mouth shut. "Not gonna puke. Pushing it down. Burying it in a place deep inside." She spoke slowly, still slurring, rolling her head from side to side on the back of the tub.

"Uh huh."

Right on cue, Sarah gagged, heaved, lurched forward… and swallowed forcibly. "See?"

"That's disgusting, Walker." She plucked a package of cosmetic wipes off the counter and lobbed them into the tub. "Clean yourself up."

"You know you want me," Sarah deadpanned, draping an arm over her knee and resting her head there.

Carina snorted and sauntered back into the bedroom. "Not when you look like a bulimic raccoon, I don't," she called back over her shoulder. She picked up Bryce's urn and placed it carefully back on the dresser. "Sorry Larkin," she whispered, patting the top of the cylinder, wondering again about the date etched into the side. She grabbed the whiskey bottle off the nightstand and took another swig, crossed over to the vanity, picked up a hand mirror, and turned back to the bathroom.

"You always want me." Sarah pulled her head out from between her knees and settled back in the tub again, letting her head fall backwards over the edge.

" _Almost_ always."

Sarah heaved and swallowed again. Carina shuddered and gagged a little herself. "Why does it seem like the only time _you_ want _me_ though, is after a three-day bender?"

"Two-day."

"Only two this time?"

"Getting too old for this shit. Damn near thirty already."

Carina pulled the mirror out from behind her back, giving Sarah a view of her face. "And you look every minute of it."

"Ugh." Sarah pushed the mirror away and picked up the pack of wipes. "I get your point."

"Drink some water." Carina snagged a bottle out of the mini-fridge and tossed it towards Sarah who elected to let it bounce off her leg and tumble into the tub rather than summoning the energy to catch or dodge. "And take some of these," a bottle of Ibuprofen followed the water. "And brush your teeth."

"No! Don't throw that."

Carina looked down at the electric toothbrush in her hand. "Why not?"

"It's expensive."

"So?"

"I'm broke."

Carina crossed the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub and put the toothbrush and toothpaste on the ledge by Sarah's arm. She had turned her face away and was staring at the wall. Carina put a finger under her chin, rotating her head so she could meet her eyes directly. What she found there was something that went beyond mere depression. Walker looked like she was just about ready to give up on the world.

"I don't wanna talk about it." She closed her eyes and turned her head back to the side.

 _Broke?_ _I don't know if I've seen her this bad, ever_.

Like any good spy, Sarah had caches of money ferreted away all over the place, and blowing through it all was something the woman she knew would never do. Sarah Walker had backup plans for her backup plans, always had. It was nauseating sometimes, really. If she had a nickel for every time she had heard Sarah say "let's go over it again," she could put them all in a pair of tube socks and beat the crap out of her with them.

Carina stared at her for a long time, but Sarah didn't open her eyes again. She looked like she was in danger of falling asleep again in the bathtub. That or doing one of her mind clearing exercises. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Carina put her hand on Sarah's shoulder, and when she didn't respond, she shook her gently. "What's the Portuguese word for coffee? You need about a gallon."

"The word 'coffee' is damn near universal, moron," Sarah mumbled with her eyes still closed. "Order mimosas too."

Carina rolled her eyes. _Moron? She's been spending too much time around Casey._ She walked back to the bedroom to make the call to room service.

"What's the name?" she covered the receiver and called to Sarah when the attendant asked.

"Calderon."

"Calderon?" Carina asked after she hung up and sat back down by Sarah. "That's Portuguese. You planning on staying a while?"

"Not anymore."

"And you don't wanna to talk about it?"

"No."

"Then why'd you call me?"

"Why'd you show up?" Sarah slid a hand up Carina's leg far enough to tease a little.

"You promised me a good time."

Sarah waggled her eyebrows and belched wetly.

"Gross." Carina slapped her hand away.

"You should have been here sooner."

"By the looks of things, you should be glad I was in Germany and not Pakistan or Jakarta. If I had been a day later, I'd be bailing you out on kidnapping charges."

"And destruction of property," Sarah muttered under her breath.

Carina cleared her throat, pointedly, raising her eyebrows.

"There may or may not have been an incident with a chandelier."

Carina cleared her throat again.

"I took care of it." Sarah waved her hand dismissively. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"How about you clean yourself up then?"

"Are the mimosas here yet?" Sarah heaved herself up into a sitting position. "No… wait… bloody marys. Call them back and tell them bloody marys."

"If you want more booze, you're going to have to get up and go get it yourself. There's a cafe around the corner."

Room service knocked on the door. _That was quick._ Broke or not, Europe or not, Sarah always tipped well.

Carina went and retrieved the coffee while Sarah grudgingly set to work with the makeup remover. Carrying the carafe and two cups in one hand, she dumped the ashtray into the wastebasket with the other and grabbed the cigarettes and zippo. She looked at the gold lighter and its King of Diamonds playing card emblem as she walked across the room and slid down the wall next to the tub, splaying her legs out across the cold tile.

"Isn't this your dad's? The one we were always trying to steal from him?"

Sarah nodded but didn't elaborate. Old mementos like this were strange things for Sarah to be carrying around. Most spies kept stuff like that in secure storage in DC—if they kept those kinds of things at all.

 _Did Sarah clean out her locker?_

She looked at the clothes spilling out of the open suitcase. It was soft leather—not a locking hardside—no spygear, no rope, no weapons, no overabundance of tight black clothing. Sarah had packed for a vacation, not a mission. She looked down at the lighter again. _Or a new life_.

Carina poured coffee and set it on the ledge by the bathtub. "Here. Black and bitter. Like your face." Sarah took a sip, one side of her face clean, the other still a charcoal and gold mess. "Now you look like the Phantom of the Opera. Seriously, did you use an entire tube of eyeliner?"

Sarah picked up the mirror and checked her results, dabbing at a few places on the clean side of her face with a fresh wipe. "The last time I looked like this was at my high school reunion, except my lip was bleeding too. Did I tell you about that?"

"No." Carina scoffed at the thought of Sarah attending a reunion and poured a shot of whiskey into her own coffee. "Who's? Katie?"

"Jenny."

Carina choked as she lit her cigarette. "Really? Jenny?"

"Mmm hmm. Remember Heather Chandler?"

"I remember how much you hated her."

"I kicked her ass and threw her in detention for the rest of her life."

"Nice."

"Always knew she was an evil bitch."

"Did Chuck and Casey see the yearbook picture?"

Sarah hung her head over her coffee cup. "It's my contact picture on Casey's phone," she muttered.

"I'm guessing you don't want to talk about that either?"

"I won reunion queen," she offered instead, twisting her lip up into a half smile. "Got a crown and everything."

Carina burst out laughing, her coffee sloshing in its cup, and Sarah groaned and grabbed her head as the sudden noise made her headache spike.

"To Queen Jenny," Carina eventually said, raising her mug after her laughter played itself out. "May you never have to be her again."

Sarah grudgingly reached over and clinked their cups together. "To Jenny."

They sat quietly while Carina worked on her coffee and smoked her cigarette. After Sarah finished cleaning her face, she reached over and lit her own. They both leaned back and watched the two trails of smoke drift and intermingle in the spotty beams of late-morning sunshine.

"You awake now?" Carina asked as she snubbed out her butt and put the ashtray on the ledge for Sarah.

"Against my better judgement."

"Good. Shit, shower, shave, and brush your goddamn teeth so we can go to brunch and you can tell me all about why you're broke and alone in Portugal swinging from chandeliers with Bryce's ashes."

"Uuuggghhh." Sarah put her head between her knees and covered it with her hands.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't want to talk about it." Carina recited along with her.

"We could just go back to bed." Sarah looked over her leg pitifully.

"Move it."

"We could fill up the tub, turn on the jets, see how long you can hold your breath…"

"Up. Use your feet."

Carina helped Sarah climb out of the bath, and when she ascertained that the bedraggled blonde was steady enough to tend to her own morning ritual, she poured herself another cup of coffee, grabbed the pack of cigarettes, and headed for the balcony.

"Don't bother with any more makeup. I'm starving."

"Don't smoke all my cigarettes."

Carina opened the pack: three left. She shrugged and lit one. She'd buy Sarah some more. It's not like there was a shortage of tobacco products in Europe.

 _So what do I know here?_ she thought as she tapped her fingers on the railing and gazed out over the Rio Tajo. All she was sure of was that Sarah was as miserable as she had ever seen her, and Bryce was dead… again. Every sign pointed to her being off grid. Had she gone rogue? Was she walking away? If she had, it certainly looked like she was regretting the decision. And what could have changed so much in the last year and a half to make someone like Sarah go rogue? It had to have something to do with Bartowski _._ The way she had spat out the words "Prague" and "training" made that much clear. Sarah had always lusted after that elusive concept of a "normal life," and not so long ago, Carina had hoped that maybe Chuck would be the guy to give it to her. But the buzz in the covert underground suggested that the new facility in Prague was a pretty damn big deal. If Chuck was training there, odds were he wasn't getting a normal life any time soon either.

Carina knew she could push Sarah into telling her everything—she always could. A little misdirection, a few changes in subject, a bit of toying with her emotions, and Sarah would spill like a ruptured pipeline. But she wasn't sure that was the best thing to do with her so close to bottom already. There was no sense in dragging her down farther. Heartache was heartache; the cause wasn't important. She took another sip of her coffee and thought again that she was glad the she, herself, didn't have much of a heart to break.

She leaned against the stone column and watched a small sightseeing plane crisscross the air over the harbor in lazy ascending loops, trying to come up with something to cheer Sarah up. The spring sunshine felt good on her face after the weeks of hibernation in Germany spent worming her way into Karl Stromberg's affections. She really hated long-term assignments and had been itching for action. She had halfway hoped Sarah had called for help on a mission.

 _Huh, fat chance of that_. Her style on missions and Sarah's didn't exactly mesh, never had.

As she watched the plane bank and head inland over the hotel, her thoughts drifted back a decade and more, to a simpler time in their lives...

" _Okay, let's go over it again."_

 _Carina sighed wearily as a sweaty seventeen-year-old Sarah swept a handful of Monopoly pieces off of a graph paper representation of the Las Vegas Fremont Street strip. Knowing Sarah, it was probably drawn to scale and everything._

 _Sarah set the shoe and the dog in place near the edge of the paper. "You'll intercept him here-"_

" _I thought I was the car."_

" _No," Sarah glared at her. "You're the dog. Dad's the car."_

" _You be the dog. I wanna be the car."_

" _Fine." Sarah switched out the pieces and thudded down the car, making the old laminate table wobble on its uneven legs. "Happy?"_

" _Ecstatic." Carina fanned herself with a take-out menu and looked at the clock for the tenth time in as many minutes._

" _Great. You'll intercept him here, at the exit to the zip line. His reservation is at 10:30. Be there early. He'll be on an adrenaline high, so it should be easy enough to get his room key out of his pocket. But, if he does catch you-"_

" _I knock him out and take it anyway."_

 _Sarah threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair, exasperated. "Do you want in on this or not? Assault equals cops."_

" _We've been over it twelve times. I get his key and distract his friends, you flash some cleavage and lure him into the Golden Nugget, your dad roofies his drink, stashes him somewhere and we break into his safe and collect his winnings. He wakes up tomorrow morning in his room thinking he lost it himself. It's not exactly Ocean's Eleven."_

" _And if he doesn't follow me?"_

" _We'll wing it."_

" _No winging it."_

" _C'mon Natasha, live a little."_

 _Sarah looked disdainfully around the hot, decrepit desert trailer they had been forced to retreat to after her dad's latest antics had gotten them kicked out of Trump Tower. She picked up an ice cube from a bowl on the table and lifted up her dark auburn hair to run it along the nape of her neck._

" _Sure. This is really the life, huh?" Sarah was taking her sudden change in circumstances hard. Amongst other things, it had cost her a full scholarship to Princeton._

" _Life is what you make of it. Stretch those wings a little. See where they take you. Who wants to spend four years in New Jersey anyway?"_

 _Sarah flapped her elbows in a sad imitation of a flightless bird. "I'm more like a penguin. My wings don't exactly work."_

" _Even penguins have fun."_

" _And get eaten by leopard seals. Like you're going to end up in prison if you don't start focusing. We're not kids anymore, Cat."_

" _You're no fun, Novakov. Have I ever told you that?"_

" _Never." Sarah put the Monopoly pieces back on the map. "Let's go over it again. You're the dog."_

" _No. I'm the… Hey! Where's the car?"_

" _You're the dog. Now what time are you going to be there?"_

" _Can I at least be the shoe?"_

" _No."_

" _Is the car in your bra? I think I need to check."_

" _Cat! Get your sweaty hands off of me!"_

Carina smiled ruefully at the memory. She _had_ knocked their mark out when he caught her with her hand in the wrong pocket, and, as Sarah had predicted, the cops showed up and Carina spent the night in jail. A real jail, not juvie. Sarah and her dad had repeated the con a few days later though—without her expert advice—and some other schmuck went home without their Vegas winnings. Sarah and her dad always got by.

From the bathroom, she heard the sound of the shower starting and she tugged at the neck of her cashmere sweater. It was perfect for cuddling up by a fire in Bavaria with her new mark, but too heavy for the balmy Portuguese spring weather. _Let's go see what Walker has in her wardrobe this time_.

 _Boring… boring… boring._ After digging through the suitcase a while, Carina found a black tee with a stylized motorcycle and Union Jack that didn't look too lame. She swapped it for her sweater and continued snooping through the the case, finally finding the clasp that opened the false bottom she knew must be there. She let out a low whistle as she saw what it contained.

 _So that's where her life savings went._

A clear case holding two discs with a red label reading "A.I.R.P." Clean identities. _Two_ clean identities. Rare—nearly impossible to find—impossible to trace, and enormously expensive on the black market. Carina did some quick mental math trying to figure out the cost of two, plus international airfare, transporting human remains, the hotel suite, etc. then gave it up as a bad deal. Unless Sarah had scored a Lichtenstein she never told her about, minus whatever credit she had pulled for the her new identity, she really was broke.

Underneath the discs was a file folder. Carina flipped through it finding hand-written dossiers and notes on personal histories for one Hector Calderon and-

Carina gasped when she saw the name on a printed resume and a single tear slid down her face. She dabbed at it, surprised. _Where did that come from?_ Okay, so maybe she _did_ have a heart buried in there somewhere _._ And it had just broken a little bit.

The resume was for one Samantha Lisa Calderon.

Carina sank down on the bed and read through the pages of Sarah's looping cursive. She didn't know much about Chuck, but the dossier for Sam Calderon looked like everything Sarah had ever hoped for. The history she had written was as close to the truth as a normal person's could be.

She shook her head and went back to the balcony, lighting the next-to-last cigarette. She was all but quivering with the need for action. Half of her wanted to jump on a plane to Prague, find that stereo store schnook and grind his head into the pavement. What the hell had he been thinking? Did he have any idea what he was giving up? What this kind of decision meant for Sarah? The other half of her wanted to use the identities and take Sarah someplace safe, someplace far, far away from everything. Was there any place far enough? Maybe the moon?

She couldn't give Sarah the moon, but she had to do something. She gazed out over the red-tiled rooftops of Lisbon and racked her brain trying to remember the last time she had seen Sarah happy. Really, truly happy. Those times were rare for her friend.

Still pondering, she returned the file folder to the suitcase before Sarah could catch her snooping. As she was shoving the clothes back in, her fingers closed around something hard. She unwrapped it from the shirt it was tangled in and stared at it in surprise for a few seconds. _I can't believe she kept this all these years..._

 _Eight months after the Fremont Street fiasco, Carina leaned against her Camero and watched a yellow Volkswagen convertible make its way down a dry desert road towards a small airstrip, spraying a fantail of dust onto the surrounding joshua trees as it passed._

" _Oh. My. God. Sam? What did you do to your hair?" she asked as Sarah parked next to her and got out of the car._

 _Sarah ran a hand self-consciously through her ragged bob._

" _Don't ask. And it's Jenny now."_

" _Jenny? How… banal."_

" _That's the point. We're laying low until the heat on Dad dies down. We're trying to be…" she gestured at herself vaguely "...inconspicuous."_

" _Well it's working for you. Where did you get that outfit? The Salvation Army reject pile?"_

" _Funny. Maybe I'd have some better options if_ someone _hadn't stolen all of my clothes."_

" _I apologize for nothing. That blue Dolce mini dress makes my ass look fantastic."_

" _Well your ass needs all the help it can get."_

 _Carina swept Sarah into a hug and gave her a quick kiss. "It's good to see you again."_

" _You too." Sarah returned the kiss, lingering a bit longer. "What are we doing out here, anyway?"_

 _Just then, Carina's new boyfriend Rob walked out of the tower and started towards the car. Carina nodded her head in his direction. "He'll explain it all to you." She had met Rob in her DEA training class and sunk her hooks into him six weeks ago, just for this day. Well... maybe not entirely for the day. He was pretty hot… for thirty anyway. And the sex wasn't bad either. Older guys tended to know what they were doing._

" _You girls ready?" he called out._

" _Born ready, babe. Rob, meet my good friend Jenny."_

" _Jenny? I thought you said Natasha." Rob raised an eyebrow, eyeing Sarah critically._

" _Whatever. Sometimes a girl needs a change."_

" _Whatever you say, babe," he said, shaking Sarah's hand, then putting his arms around Carina possessively and kissing the top of her head. "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine." Sarah shuffled her feet in the dust, clearly a bit jealous and self-conscious._

" _She's all gassed up and ready to go," he jerked his thumb towards a yellow Cessna sitting in front of an open hanger._

 _Sarah immediately brightened. "Are you taking us flying?"_

" _No love." Carina handed her a pair of aviators. "You are."_

Carina looked down at the little figurine of a penguin in sunglasses and a scarf sitting in a yellow airplane. Sarah had smiled herself stupid that day—braces and all—from the second Carina handed her the sunglasses to the time she pulled her back into her room later that night and put some more interesting expressions on her face. Even during the hour-long lecture on toggles and throttles and checklists and blah blah blah before they took off, Sarah was elated. The weeks of listening to Rob drone on about aviation minutiae between training sessions had nearly driven her to strangle herself, but the look on Sarah's face as she ran her fingers lovingly over each control as she learned its function had been absolutely worth it.

" _Did you hear everything he said about landing, Jenny?" she had asked after they spent a few hours circling the desert._

" _Mmm hmm" she replied, distracted by the view of the Grand Canyon below._

" _Good. Because it was the last thing he'll say before we run out of gas."_

" _What?!" Sarah reached over and shook the pilot who had dozed off in the his seat. He didn't wake up._

 _Carina held up a pill bottle. "Same stuff I put in Ritchie's coffee."_

 _Sarah's mouth had dropped into an O for a split second as she looked at Rob's coffee mug and back at Carina, and then the smile snuck back. "You didn't."_

 _Carina grinned. "Merry Christmas, Sam."_

" _Cat!"_

" _Help me get him in the back."_

 _Sarah engaged the autopilot. She pushed and Carina pulled until Rob was in the passenger seat and Carina climbed up front to sit next to Sarah. She put a hand on her thigh, pulled off her headset, perched Rob's hat on her head to cover up that awful haircut, and kissed her, long and deep._

" _Fly me home, little penguin."_

Carina turned the figurine over. The ink on the bottom had faded with time, but she didn't need to read it.

 _S-  
_ _Always, remember that penguins can fly.  
_ _Spread your wings and soar on the wind.  
_ _Land home safe next to me.  
_ _You carry my heart in yours, always.  
_ _-C_

 _P.S. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum_

When Sarah spent her first night on the Farm, it was waiting for her under her pillow.

Carina grabbed her phone and made a quick series of calls. After she hung up, she continued her snooping expedition through Sarah's things, throwing a bag together, then sat and waited for Sarah to finish her shower.

 _She's been in there an awfully long time._

"Walker! Get a move on. Daylight's burning here."

Carina stalked into the bathroom and pulled up short at the sight of Sarah sitting in the shower stall with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head down, back heaving, sobbing. She looked so small, curled up in her ball—thin, fragile, utterly crushed by the weight she was carrying on her trembling shoulders.

"Oh Sam." Carina's voice broke a little. She walked to the shower and turned off the spray, causing Sarah to look up. At first she looked abashed at being caught crying, but then her face twisted.

" _Take off that shirt,_ " she hissed.

Carina furrowed her brow and looked down at the tee. "Uh… Okay..."

"TAKE IT OFF!" She choked out the words and began sobbing again.

"Okay! Okay!" Carina peeled off the shirt and tossed it into a corner. Heedless of the damage the water pooled in the shower would do to her leather pants, she sat down next to Sarah and gathered the weeping woman into her arms. Sarah buried her face in her chest and sobbed for what seemed a lifetime while Carina stroked her back and feathered the top of her head with soft kisses, whispering quiet assurances into her ears. "Shhhh… just let it all out."

When her tears were spent and the gasping turned to trembling, Carina turned Sarah's face to hers. Their eyes locked for a span of heartbeats, Carina trying to convey the emotions she never could quite figure a way to say out loud, Sarah obviously looking for an anchor in a place where there were no answers. When she felt Sarah begin to relax a bit, she moved her head forward and parted her lips slightly, inviting, and Sarah launched herself upwards, sealing her mouth to hers.

Sarah kissed her as if Carina somehow held the solution for all her years of pain, as if her lips and mouth and tongue held the secret to healing, to the end of her heartbreak, and oh, how she wished they did. Carina couldn't give three flying shits about the entirety of the seven billion people on the face of the planet—except for this one. The girl who had conned her way into her life when she was eleven years old and changed her from a lonely, overlooked gold digger's daughter into someone with a purpose, someone with a friend—her one and only real friend. Someone who would charge through closed borders in a war zone to pull her out of Pakistan when she got in over her head the same way she had snuck up and sprung her out of the back of a police cruiser when she got caught shoplifting at twelve. The girl who's nightmares had woken her more times than she could count, who's raw honesty in a world full of lies had given her someone to protect—someone to trust. Someone who made her feel like a real person and not the series of disconnected false identities she had lived her life as. When people like them found a person like that, they hung on to them. And Carina held on to Sarah now with all she had in her.

Sarah eventually broke the kiss and rested her head heavily on Carina's shoulder.

"Is your head clear now?"

"No," Sarah shook her head.

Carina shimmied around to pull the crumpled cigarette pack out of her pocket. "Here. It's the last one." She lit it and handed it to Sarah.

After Sarah declined once more to talk about it, the two smoked in silence, passing the cigarette back and forth until Sarah put it out, hissing, in a pool of water. "Can we go back to bed now?"

"When was the last time you ate something?"

Sarah thought. "I'm pretty sure there was ice cream at some point."

For the second time that morning, Carina put Sarah's arm over her shoulder and, groaning, lifted her to her feet.

"C'mon. Let's get you dressed."

* * *

 _If any of you need a smile right now, I highly recommend running a Google image search for "penguins in airplanes." I promise you'll say "D'awww" at least once._

 _Also many thanks out to the Great and Mighty_ **Frea O'Scanlin** _for patiently putting up with me popping up on messenger to ask her annoying questions about airplanes. If anything above or below is glaringly wrong, it's because of a question I didn't think to ask her. Also my apologies to any Portuguese speakers out there for butchering your language. If the dialogue sounds like it came out of a web translator, well, that's because it did. Carina's bad Spanish in the next chapter is my own though. One of these days I'll be able to have a conversation with a native speaker without them laughing at me..._


	2. Chapter 2

_I spent a long time going back and forth about the rating for this chapter. I finally decided that since it's set in Europe, it gets a European T rather than an American M but your own mileage may vary._

* * *

 **Two Hours Later**

 **Song Cues:**

 **Skinny Love (Live) - Birdy  
** **Learning to Fly - Pink Floyd  
** **Trista Pena - Gipsy Kings  
** **Sexy Bitch - David Guetta Feat. Akon**

* * *

"Seriously, Sarah, you should see this guy. Big, burly dude. Almost as big as Casey, covered in tattoos and an inch-thick machete scar running from wrist to elbow, but he cries when we make love."

Sarah looked up from the bloody mary she had been staring at more than actually drinking. "Really?"

"I'm dead serious."

"And you call it 'making love?' _You?_ "

"Pffft. Please. _He_ does though. You know what his pet name for me is?"

"I hate to ask."

"Smooshie."

"Smooshie?"

"Smoosh for short. And oh my God, he talks. And talks and talks. It never ends. Why do they always have to talk so much?"

"So much." Sarah agreed emphatically, swallowing her last bite of fritatta.

"Posso lhe trazer mais alguma coisa? Sobremesa, talvez?" their server approached their patio table and asked politely, clearing away their empty plates.

"Qualquer coisa chocolate," Sarah replied.

Carina eyed the server up and down a few times. "How about some whipped cream and chocolate syrup? You can serve them up on your abs." The kid was seriously cute—looked like a surfer or a mountain biker or somesuch. Whichever it was, he definitely looked like he could last a while.

"Desculpe?"

"Deixa para lá," Sarah waved her hand dismissively, shooting Carina an exasperated look.

"Y uno más mojito," Carina replied after slurping the last of hers noisily through her straw and giving the bemused-looking waiter a wink. "You know, the more of these things you drink, the more fun it is to say," she said to Sarah as she passed over her empty glass.

"I can't take you anywhere."

"Fact that I'm here says otherwise."

Sarah rolled her eyes and lit another cigarette, leaning back to take in the view of the picturesque city and its harbor. Carina watched her as her unstyled hair floated back in the breeze and she closed her eyes, tilting her face to catch the sunshine, taking on a faraway expression. She had been far away through most of the brunch. Carina had had to order for her, coax her into eating until her own appetite took over, and keep up most of the conversation on her own. That part wasn't too difficult being that she hadn't interacted with anybody outside of Stromberg's circle and her agency contact in weeks. It felt good just to be herself again, to act like a normal person and not have to censor herself or remember which part she was supposed to be playing or which lie she was supposed to be perpetuating. The only times she had where she could really do that were when she was with Sarah.

In the distance, a car backfired and Sarah immediately opened her eyes, looking around and reaching for a nonexistent gun at the the small of her back.

 _Good. She's coming back a little._

When Sarah had satisfied herself that there was no danger, she took another drag off her cigarette and leaned back again, closing her eyes. Carina watched her carefully controlling her breath, probably timing it out to her heartbeat in an attempt to calm herself. She wondered if that kind of shit ever worked for Walker. It certainly never did for her. The concept of calm centers was a joke in people designed for action.

After a couple of minutes of watching the ash on Sarah's cigarette grow, Carina got bored again and put a one-cent coin on the table. She circled her thumb and forefinger and flicked it into the air, scoring a hit on Sarah's cheek.

"Hey!" Sarah put a hand to her face as the coin bounced away across the patio.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Sarah glared and ground out her spent cigarette.

Carina reached across the table to smooth the furrow from between Sarah's brows, laying her hand on her cheek, cupping her face. "Still don't want to talk about it?"

Sarah sighed and opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to find words and failing. Eventually she gave up and put her hand over Carina's own, accepting the comfort she was offering, two tears slipping down her face. Carina slid her chair around the table and put her arm around her shoulders and, after a moment's hesitation, Sarah sank wearily into the embrace—something she wasn't typically prone to do in public.

Carina rested her head on Sarah's until their server returned a few minutes later with a heaping plate of chocolate lava cake _a la mode_ and set it down on the table with two spoons and Carina's mojito. He also pulled a bottle of chocolate syrup out of his apron and placed it alongside, winking at Carina before walking away.

Sarah scoffed and rolled her eyes again, picking up a spoon.

"I guess his English is better than I thought." Carina picked up the syrup bottle. A phone number was scrawled on the label in Sharpie. She pulled out her phone and snapped a pic. Another shot for her trophy album. Sarah snatched the bottle out of her hand, dumping even more chocolate onto the plate in front of her.

"Think you have enough there?"

"You can never have too much chocolate," Sarah said seriously.

"Some things never change."

"Everything changes," Sarah exhaled heavily, putting down her spoon and that faraway look coming back.

"Not everything." Carina picked up her hand and held it between both of hers. "Not this."

Sarah looked up to met her eyes and gave her a sad half-smile. "I've missed you."

Carina leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead, taking in the smell of her skin and freshly-washed hair. Grapefruit. Sarah always smelled like grapefruit when she didn't smell like day-old booze and cigarettes, or sausages.

"How about we go somewhere together, just you and me?" Carina ran her fingers through that citrus-scented hair and pulled Sarah's forehead against hers. "Maybe Ibiza? We could rent a little house by the beach, stay for a while, see where things take us?"

Sarah considered for a minute then pulled back and shook her head slowly. "We don't work that way. You know that."

"Everything changes. You just said so yourself. Maybe we could try it again? No missions, no cons, no lies?"

Sarah turned her eyes to the table, not answering. Carina shoved down her disappointment. She was right, after all. They didn't work that way. And Sarah had obviously given her heart to someone else—reciprocated or not.

 _Charles Irving Bartowski is a bloodydamn fool._

"At least this time, you wouldn't leave me for Larkin." She couldn't stop herself from taking at least one retaliatory shot.

Sarah clenched her jaw. "For the thousandth time, it wasn't like that."

"I put that CAT squad together just for you, and you ran off with the first blue-eyed boy that made your toes curl."

"It wasn't like that! I was reassigned!"

She was angry. Good. If she was going to get back up on her feet and face the world again, she was going to need that anger. The psy-ops spooks said it was unhealthy, but covert agents didn't exactly run on sunshine and rainbows.

 _Time to change the subject._

"We could get a dog."

"What?"

"In Ibiza. Haven't you always wanted a dog?"

"Don't you have work to do?"

"Don't you?"

"I… I don't know," Sarah said, concerned. "I think I might be rouge."

"How long have you been off grid?"

"Seventy-two hours, give or take."

Carina waved a hand. "That's nothing. You should check in though, if you're going back." Sarah looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her nails. " _Are_ you going back?"

Sarah mumbled a non-answer and kept her gaze on her fingernails, and Carina put a hand on her back, rubbing circles to loosen the tension between her shoulder blades.

"Why don't my plans ever work out?" she eventually asked quietly, a catch in her voice.

"That's bullshit." Sarah shot her a look saying that she didn't believe her. "I could tell you about a hundred different missions and a hundred different cons you planned that worked out fine."

"And I can tell you a hundred more that didn't. I can't even manage 'get drunk, get laid.'"

"Well, you made it halfway there."

Sarah huffed out an acknowledgment.

"And you would have finished if you weren't thinking so damn much."

She nodded again, conceding the point and putting her head in her hands.

"That's your problem. You're always thinking too much, looking too far ahead. You can't plan out your entire life and expect it to work out for everybody else."

"People always let you down in the end."

"True that." Carina slid her phone across the table. "One mission at a time. Check in. If you're not coming with me, you need to work."

"What do I say?"

"Same thing I always do. You were following a hunch, got made, ditched your phone, went underground until the heat died off. They buy it every time."

Sarah picked up the phone and turned it over in her hands a few times, but didn't make the call. "Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing? Working for the right people?"

 _Every damn day_ , Carina thought tiredly. But instead she put a flippant tone in her voice.

"Nah. They don't pay me to think. And you don't need to either. Just go earn your paycheck. Let the world sort out its own problems."

Sarah sighed. "You're probably right." She lifted the phone again, pressing the home button. "What's your lock code?"

"6969."

"Should've guessed."

Sarah looked around at the sparse crowd on the patio and elected to send a text message rather than make a call. When she was finished, Carina snatched the phone from her.

"I'm booking you a flight. First class. My treat. Dulles?"

"Burbank."

"Los Angeles still? I thought you said Chuck was in Prague. If you're not guarding him, what are you still doing there?"

At the mention of Chuck's name, Sarah's face went grim again. "There's a Ring cell there we're trying to take down."

"Pffft. The Ring. Douchebags with stupid phones. That shouldn't take you too long."

Sarah shrugged. "I can't really talk about it." A little of her agent demeanor was starting to creep back. Regrettable, but still a good thing.

"Will Chuck be joining you when he's done with his training?"

"Who knows? It'll be a couple of months at least."

"Good. Maybe you can find a hot new partner to keep you occupied."

"I think I'm done with partners."

"Yeah, right."

Sarah declined to respond to the barb, and Carina navigated her travel app while Sarah polished off the rest of the dessert.

"Two p.m. tomorrow good for you? There's a flight to Munich about the same time." She wanted to go to the airport with Sarah to make sure she actually got on the plane.

"Whatever." She was hardly thrilled at the prospect of returning to work. Carina couldn't blame her, but she couldn't exactly have her wandering around Europe broke, brokenhearted and alone either. If Ibiza was off the table, work would be good for her. Give her something to put her back up against.

As she was finalizing their itineraries, a reminder alert popped up on the screen.

"Time to go."

"What?" Sarah looked at her, confused.

"I've got a little something planned."

"Oh no. No."

"It's like you don't trust me at all."

"I don't."

"When have I ever let you down?"

"You really want me to answer that?"

Carina laughed. "C'mon." She threw a wad of Euros down on the table and stood up, taking Sarah's hand and pulling her reluctantly to her feet. "Let's go find a cab." Sarah cast a wistful glance at her hotel and the bed waiting there and then allowed Carina to pull her onto the sidewalk.

In the taxi, Sarah curled up across the back seat, putting her head in Carina's lap, and Carina allowed her the half hour's rest, stroking her hair and smoothing the wrinkles from her forehead as she watched the city slide by. When they arrived, she shook Sarah gently out of her restless doze, coaxing her to sit up.

"An airport? I thought we weren't leaving until tomorrow."

"Just wait."

In Spanish, she directed the cab driver to take them past the commercial terminals to a small hangar with a sign reading "AeroLisbon Passeios Pitorescos."

"We're going sightseeing?"

"Something like that." She paid the driver and slid out of the car, lending an arm to Sarah to help her out. "Wait here."

She walked into the small office to confirm their reservation and returned to the tarmac a few minutes later with a pilot in tow.

"Siga-me, senhoras," the dumpy, middle-aged man gestured towards a small Beechcraft twin-engine waiting in the hangar.

As they walked, Carina grabbed the flight manifest out of the surprised pilot's hands and tossed the binder over to Sarah. "Why don't you go check out that baby and see if she's airworthy?"

A gleam came into Sarah's eyes and she quirked an eyebrow at Carina. "Really?"

Carina winked. "Really."

"Ei!" the pilot protested, starting to chase after Sarah. Carina hooked him by a sleeve and pulled him back. She pulled a thick sheaf of Euros out of her pocket, and pressed them into his palm.

"Piérdete."

The man looked back and forth between the money and Carina. "Não." He stammered out. "Não, não, não."

"Cálmate. Ella es una pilota."

"Não." He shook his head.

 _Fucking men. Why do they always have to be so stubborn_?

She peeled off a few more hundred-note Euros and added them to the stack. She didn't care about the money. Stromberg was loaded, and he wasn't about to deny anything to his little Smooshie—because she was just that good. Plus, if she knocked him out, Sarah would just get mad.

The pilot counted the money and, giving Carina a suspicious look, walked over to Sarah who was circling the plane, checking things off in the binder. A rapid-fire conversation in Portuguese followed, him asking her a series of questions and her answering with calm authority. Carina only caught parts of it. Something about flight hours and simulator time and a half-dozen "what if" scenarios. Finally the man sighed, delivered a short lecture and gave her what sounded like call signs. He slouched back over to Carina, defeated.

"For this… I possible lose my job," he said in halting English.

"Não mi problema."

He gave her a level stare. She sighed and handed over the rest of her cash and he reluctantly passed over the keys to the plane.

"Gracias. Ahora, dejanos en paz." He glared at her one more time. "Seriously, vete al diablo."

"É o seu funeral." The pilot crossed himself, murmuring something up to the heavens, and shuffled off towards his car. He'd probably go hide somewhere until they returned and hope his bosses didn't notice he was never on the plane with the two women.

Carina fished a pair of aviators out of her purse, walked over to Sarah and slid them onto her face. "You ready to fly, Penguin?"

Sarah put a hand on Carina's cheek and gave her a quick kiss. "Thank you," she said before turning back to her paperwork.

Carina unlocked the plane and hopped into the co-pilot's seat. She amused herself by taking selfies while Sarah finished her checklists and familiarized herself with the plane's controls. Finally, Sarah put on her headset and, after receiving clearance, started the engines and taxied out onto the runway.

And, for the first time that day, as they sped off the runway, the G-forces pinning them to their seats as they lifted into the air, Sarah smiled.

 **XXX**

After a few minutes of mid-air acrobatics that left Carina gasping and clambering to stay in her seat, Sarah stuck to the sightseeing route over the Iberian peninsula outlined in the flight manifest. She stayed mostly quiet, choosing to admire the scenery and enjoy the flight instead of talking. Carina didn't press her. She had already figured out most of the story, and Sarah would tell her about the details when she was ready—probably much later when she had gained some distance from the situation.

Over the Strait of Gibraltar, Sarah banked the plane sharply, turning them back Westward.

"Anything else you want to see?" she asked. "We've got a couple of hours worth of gas left."

"How about Ibiza?" She put a hand on Sarah's neck, running one finger lightly along her hairline.

Sarah smiled softly and shook her head. "Not today."

"Someday though?"

"Maybe. I'm trying not to plan too far ahead these days."

"Touché." Carina dropped back in her seat. "Keep heading West."

"Why? There's nothing out there but ocean."

"Exactly." Carina reached into her bag and drew out Bryce's urn. "International waters."

"Perfect," Sarah agreed and set a course.

Carina ran a finger over the inscription. "Is he the reason you chose Lisbon?"

Sarah nodded. "It was our first mission together. He said it's where he fell in love with me and it's where he wanted to be buried. I figure it's the last thing I can do for him."

"What happened to him? I thought he died a long time ago."

"I can't really talk about it."

"Can't? Or won't?"

"Can't."

"You know I wouldn't talk."

"No," Sarah shook her head firmly. "It's complicated. And classified. And it would put you in too much danger."

"What exactly have you been doing in California all this time?" She could usually read Sarah like a book, but this latest assignment of hers still had her perplexed.

Sarah set her mouth in a firm line and shook her head again, keeping her eyes on the horizon. Carina let it drop. When Sarah had that look on her face, there was no budging her. Not easily, anyway.

Carina turned the urn over in her hands. "Did I ever tell you about that time Bryce and I-"

"Can we save the Bryce stories for some other time, please?" She looked close to tears again.

"Okay." Carina set the urn on the floor between them. "I really am sorry though."

Sarah gave a half-hearted shrug. "It was easier the second time."

"Well let's give him a proper send-off."

When the coastline dropped out of sight behind them, Sarah nosed the plane into a steep dive, leveling out a scant few meters above the surface of the ocean. "Grab your wheel," she told Carina.

"What?! I don't know how to fly!"

"Just hold her steady."

Carina hung on to the control arm with a death grip as Sarah slid open her window. Her hair blowing wildly in the wind, she released her seatbelt, picked up the urn, spoke a few words Carina couldn't make out over the torrent of air, and leaned out the window. She unscrewed the top and the earthly remains of Bryce Larkin trailed behind them, drifting in the wind to settle slowly into the Atlantic. Given time and tides, he would wash up on the shores of Portugal; his first international mission and his final resting place.

Sarah took back over the controls and Carina released her wheel, gasping with relief. She watched the color bleed back into her knuckles as Sarah ascended, spiraling over the still-settling plume of Bryce's ashes. When she caught her breath, she reached into her bag again and pulled out the bottle of whiskey from that morning. A half-inch of amber liquid remained at the bottom. She opened her own window and poured one out for Larkin.

"Bye Bryce," she whispered into the wind, dropping the bottle and watching it tumble out of sight. "Thanks for taking care of my girl all those years."

When Sarah reached cruising altitude and set the autopilot, Carina reached into her bag again, cupping one last item in her palm. "Is there anything else you want to give to the Atlantic?"

Sarah looked around the cockpit and nodded. She picked up the pack of cigarettes off of the dashboard and tossed them out her window. The zippo she returned to her pocket.

"Hey! I was just about to smoke one of those."

"You're the one who told me to go back to work. I can't be wheezing my way through my missions, now can I?"

Carina harrumphed and pouted a little, but she couldn't hold the face for long. Sarah was right, as usual.

"I was talking about this," she said instead, opening her palm to reveal a silver charm bracelet. She had found it in a pocket of Sarah's suitcase and knew immediately it wasn't something she would have purchased for herself.

Sarah's face fell when she saw what Carina was holding and her eyes welled with tears. "No," she said quietly, taking it from Carina's hand and putting it in her pocket. "I'll give it back to Ellie."

"Who's Ellie?"

"It was her mother's."

"Who's this Ellie, now? And why did she give you her mother's charm bracelet?"

Sarah's face brightened a touch and she laughed a little, raising her eyebrows at Carina.

"Why? You jealous?"

"No," Carina muttered.

"Uh huh."

"I'm not!" Sarah grinned at her. "Who's Ellie?"

Sarah checked the airplane's controls, threw a few switches, and with a quick, feline movement, lifted herself from her seat and pivoted onto Carina's, straddling her lap. "Don't worry, Cat," she breathed into her ear, sending a wave of electricity down her spine. "You know you're the only girl for me."

Carina moved to kiss her and Sarah pulled back, teasing. She looked down at her for a long moment, amusement playing across her features. "Has anybody ever told you you're adorable when you're jealous?"

"I'm not jealous."

"Yeah, right."

"Just come here." Carina hooked her hand behind Sarah's neck and bit lightly on her earlobe before pulling her down into a long, deep kiss. Sarah sucked in her breath and ground her pelvis against hers, moaning softly, and the two of them left the plane to fly itself back to land.

 **XXX**

They landed with the sunset and turned the keys to the Beechcraft back over to the relieved-looking pilot. Carina instructed their cab driver to drop them several blocks from Sarah's hotel, and they strolled down the cobbled street hand-in-hand. The crowds were just beginning to turn out in search of nightlife, and Carina paused in front of a nightclub that was opening its doors. "Feel like swinging from any more chandeliers?"

Sarah smiled softly and shook her head. "How about over there?" She pointed to a small, dimly-lit wine bar across the street where an acoustic quartet was setting up to perform.

"Anything you want."

They crossed the street and sat close together, intertwining their legs under the shadowy shelter of the bar. They ordered tapas and a bottle of rich, Portuguese red and sipped it slowly as the bar filled around them, chewing on cocktail straws when the urge for after-dinner cigarettes hit. They spoke of trivialities, avoiding the subjects of work and men and what awaited each of them when they parted ways at the airport the next day.

As the band began their second set, Sarah looked at Carina over the rim of her empty wineglass as she drained the last few drops from her own. Her cheeks were flushed, her windblown hair tumbling in waves around her face, and her eyes gleamed in the ambient lighting. Carina took a moment to admire her visage as Sarah set down her glass and rolled her cocktail straw coyly over her bottom lip.

"You ready to get out of here?"

"No," Sarah murmured and stood up, reaching for Carina's hand. "Dance with me."

Carina gave Sarah her hand and allowed herself to be led onto the small dance floor. They threaded their way through the other couples to a spot near the middle and Sarah pulled her close, sliding her arms around her waist. Carina put a hand on her shoulder and the other on her cheek, guiding her head down to rest against her neck, and for the rest of the set, they danced. They swayed slowly to the mellow music, Sarah leaning more and more heavily against her as the songs played on. The tension and desperation from earlier in the day had largely passed, but Sarah still held her tightly, clinging, melancholy and weariness radiating off of her in waves.

When the band leader announced a break, Carina led Sarah off the dance floor and back onto the street. She put an arm around her shoulders and Sarah listed against her as they walked the last few blocks to her hotel. When they opened the door to the room, she looked bemusedly around. "We sure do know how to trash a hotel room, don't we?"

Sarah picked up the knotted stockings she had used to lock the man from the night before in the bathroom and toyed with them, moving to put them away in the suitcase. Carina reached around her and took them back out of her hands. "Don't clean up yet. I can think of a better use for these."

"Oh, really?"

Sarah spun around and locked her gaze with Carina's, her blue eyes smouldering.

"Mmm hmm." Carina hooked the hose around Sarah's neck and pulled her in for a searing kiss. She walked her backwards across the room, tumbling her down onto the bed. Carina gathered two fistfuls of Sarah blouse and pulled, sending a few more buttons to clatter on the floor. Sarah nipped at her neck and rolled them over and Carina rolled them back, pinning the struggling blonde beneath her. Carina peeled off her shirt and the two tussled and grappled and nipped at each other between heated kisses until Carina had her exactly where she wanted her—with her hands tied to the headboard of the bed and her astride her hips. Sarah tested her restraints as Carina removed her bra then closed her eyes and whimpered, rolling her pelvis under Carina's own.

"I knew you wanted me," Sarah breathed as Carina slid her hands over her torso, running them up her ribs and around her back to unclasp her bra. She pushed the lingerie up over Sarah's bound hands and onto the headboard and ran her thumbs over Sarah's nipples, feeling them harden beneath her touch.

"Always," Carina murmured as she kissed her way down Sarah's stomach and unbuttoned her jeans. She slid them down the length of her legs and pulled off her boots, tossing them behind her to clunk against the wall. "And this time," she said, running a fingernail over the sole of Sarah bare foot and smiling as she watched her gasp and writhe at the sensation, "you're going to say _my_ name."

Carina slapped the bottom of Sarah's foot making her inhale sharply and moan again. "Come here," she growled from low in her throat. And those were the last coherent words either of them spoke for a long while.

* * *

 **Six Months Later  
** **Burbank, California**

 **Song Cue: Where Are You Now - Mumford and Sons**

* * *

Sarah sat on the counter of the Orange Orange and watched the traffic driving in and out of the mall parking lot. She rubbed at a shoulder wearily, rolling it in its aching socket. Her last mission had ended up with her tied up again—and not in the good kind of way. She wondered again if she wasn't getting too old for this line of work. Not everybody was built for the long-term like Casey, and she had hoped she would have had more to show for her life by the time she turned thirty than a few suitcases and an extended-stay hotel room. She was a long way from qualifying for retirement, but she thought again about asking for an assignment at headquarters once this mission wrapped. Casey was headed to Lisbon and another Ring cell, but she didn't necessarily have to go with him. Maybe she could take an instructor's position at the Farm. She could see herself doing that without being bored to tears, and the past couple of years had taught her the value of staying in one place for a while, of putting down roots. Maybe she could buy herself a little house outside of D.C., even get a dog or two. She was slowly rebuilding her savings—living simply and putting away a large portion of each check, and she thought she would be able to afford a down payment in another year or so.

She didn't let herself think about who might share that house with her.

Love was overrated anyway.

Still, the past few months had been good in their own kind of way. She had followed Carina's advice and thrown herself into her work, and her ill-advised escapade in Europe had passed by without comment. The interagency team Beckman had assembled to take down the Los Angeles Ring cell was comprised of some of the best in the business and things had been calm, businesslike, professional. She kept to herself and they kept to theirs and they went about their jobs efficiently—no personal conversations, no emotional outbursts, no drama. She had promoted herself to store manager at the O.O. and left the junior agents to tend to the day-to-day running of the business. They skimped on the cleaning and let the quality of their product steadily decline until there were hardly any customers on any given day, and she didn't even bother with the uniform anymore. Wearing the tight white pants and skimpy tank top wasn't the same when the only eyes on her weren't the ones that she wanted anyway.

Even her seduction of Gilles had gone more smoothly than she had hoped. She had worried that when the time came for him to take her to bed she wouldn't be able to follow through, but she was able to play her role in the moment, and honestly, it was better than walking around brimming with unfulfilled sexual tension all of the time. It kept her head clear, and Gilles was a nice enough guy—if misguided in his affiliations—and it was looking like she was going to be able to turn him rather than burn him so she could leave Los Angeles with a clear conscience.

The mall was still full of memories everywhere she turned, but yes, things had been good… until Chuck started calling, that was.

At first, Casey had tried to fill her in on the details of his training in Prague, but she made herself clear that she wasn't interested in hearing them. Casey had been confused, and actually looked a little hurt by her aloofness, but eventually he quit bringing the subject up.

Until recently. It was Beckman who had told her that Chuck had washed out of training and was returning to Los Angeles, along with orders to resume their cover relationship until the government could figure out what to do with him. She had refused. Beckman had threatened to court martial her for disobedience, but she had finally managed to convince her it would be too complicated while she was still entwined with Gilles. The general had reluctantly agreed, buying her some time, and it had fallen to Casey to keep tabs on Chuck and monitor his surveillance feeds.

Casey, however, wouldn't let it drop. It seemed like every other conversation she had with him now included some sort of innuendo about turning lemons into lemonade. And neither would Ellie or Devon. Even though she had blocked Chuck's number, she still had a voice mailbox full of unplayed messages from Casa Bartowski. Even Morgan had made an appearance at the O.O., pleading on his friend's behalf. It actually felt good to see the little guy again, but she had sent him scurrying out of the store with his tail between his legs and he hadn't come back since, even though she saw him around the mall, sneaking in and out of the Buy More after hours. They all made it seem like Chuck was in a bad place, but she couldn't summon up any sympathy on his behalf. In fact, knowing he was miserable gave her a smug sense of schadenfreude and made her feel a bit better. He had made his choice, and now he had to live with the consequences. She wouldn't be setting foot in Echo Park again.

She really didn't think about him at all these days. Not at all…

She may have also spent a lot of time lying to herself.

And there was that one night, after her conversation with Beckman, alone in Castle, when she put the feed from his bedroom on the monitor and watched him sleep…

But really, she didn't think about him… much.

Being numb was easier, after all.

Her phone rang and she looked at the screen—another call from Ellie. She pushed down an all-too-familiar wave of anger, and hit the decline button. She took a few deep breaths and looked at her watch, drumming her feet against the side of the counter. Greta was ten minutes late for her shift and Sarah still needed to go buy a dress for the mission that night. If all went according to plan, it would be her last mission in Los Angeles. One last mission, and then no more yogurt, no more Gilles, no more Buy More, and no more Chuck Bartowski.

Sarah sighed and pushed off the counter, opening the register. She had already counted down the drawer for the next shift, but she counted it again for the lack of anything better to do while she waited. She always did like the feel of money in her hands. As she was refilling the containers of toppings, Greta finally breezed in through the door. "Sorry I'm late," she said airily as she tied on her apron. "Traffic was horrible and I had to drop Greta at her surveillance post."

Sarah smiled knowingly at the young agent's smeared lipstick and let the excuse fly. Everybody could see that the two Gretas were smitten with each other, and who was she to stand in the way of young love? The two of them had enough challenges to face without any interference from her.

After she passed over the day's security codes, Sarah told Greta goodbye and left the shop. As she crossed to her car, her phone buzzed again and she pulled it out of her pocket, exasperated, preparing to hit the decline button. She stopped walking and smiled when she saw the picture on the screen though—a selfie of a duck-faced Carina, taken in the cockpit of the plane in Lisbon with Sarah in the background bending her head studiously over the flight manifest.

 _This town still smells like piss and desperation,_ the text message read. _See you this weekend? I know a club where you can swing from the ceiling ;)_

A new swagger in her step, Sarah punched in a reply and slid behind the wheel of her Porsche. She thought she could find it in her budget to spring for a second dress. Something a little… slinkier.

Out of long habit, she looked at the entrance to the Buy More as she started her car and revved the motor. Creeping into the store was a tall bearded man wearing, of all things, a bathrobe, baseball cap, and sunglasses. Sarah shook her head contemptuously as she reversed out of her spot and peeled out of the parking lot. _Piss and desperation, indeed._ She really couldn't get out of Los Angeles fast enough.

One last mission, and she was gone.

* * *

 _So did anybody ever explain the whole Greta thing? Maybe there was an interview with the showrunners I missed or a special feature on the DVDs? I've always wondered, but at least it did save me the effort of coming up with a name for the character. Feel free to picture your favorite Greta here, but I'm of course going with Summer Glau._

 _And just a random question to throw out to the ficverse: if you take a character that's already gay and put them in a heterosexual situation, is it still considered slash? I have an idea for an Arizona/Alex story for_ Grey's Anatomy _rattling around in my head. If I ever write it, I'm not sure how I would label it._

 _Thanks to everybody for reading, and Happy Holidays!_


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